The bill, which falls far short of what those working on school accountability on all sides of the issue had hoped would pass, now heads to Gov. Scott Walker for his signature. Walker, who was involved with trying to come up with a more expansive bill, has indicated he would sign the measure that passed.

No deal could be reached on the GOP’s more expansive plan, which Rep. Jim Steineke had been working on in the final hours of the Assembly’s last planned session day Thursday. Instead, the more limited version passed on a voice vote.

“I do agree that there is much more work to be done, but I remain skeptical of the work product,” said Pope, the only lawmaker to comment before the vote.

The fate of the accountability bill, which has been kicked around for more than three years and went through several previous versions this year, remained up in the air until late afternoon when Steineke confirmed he was dropping his plan.

“It’s a Herculean effort to do something this comprehensive,” Steineke said in an interview.

Instead, the Assembly passed the Senate bill, which simply requires all schools that take public money to have performance data and other information included on report cards for the public to see.

Steineke was pushing for creating sanctions that would lead to closing public schools and kicking private schools out of the taxpayer-subsidized voucher program. But his approach met widespread opposition, including from the Department of Public Instruction and School Choice Wisconsin. Even fellow Republican Rep. Steve Kestell, chairman of the Education Committee, urged his colleagues in an email this week to reject the idea.

Ultimately, Steineke said it was better to move ahead with passing the Senate bill rather than his idea, which wouldn’t have become law anyhow because there wasn’t enough support to pass it in the Senate.

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He and Sen. Paul Farrow, another conservative Republican, will lead a working group with public and private school advocates and others to come up with another accountability bill next year.

Walker, public and private school representatives, lawmakers and others have been working for three years on an accountability bill but were unable to reach a deal on anything other than requiring the reporting of test results and other demographic information by the 2015 school year.

Voucher school rules OK'd

Private schools that want to participate in Wisconsin’s voucher program would have to meet new, tougher requirements under a bill that has passed the Assembly.

Under the voucher program, students receive a taxpayer subsidy to pay for their private school tuition. The program now operates statewide, after initially being only in Milwaukee.

The proposal unanimously passed Thursday is supported by both the state Department of Public Instruction and groups that advocate for the voucher program.

The Republican-sponsored bill would require voucher schools to maintain accreditation from legitimate agencies.

That provision allowed many ineffective or unstable schools to keep getting taxpayer dollars.